Not read, author of “The Loom of Time” 2023 KLib

A little hard to get into if, like me, you didn't already have the vocabulary. But once you get up to speed, it's an excellent discussion of how geography shapes geopolitics. Recommend you read it with a good atlas, you'll never see the maps the same way again. ( )

I probably should reread this book with my eyes. It is very dense and my mind wandered sometimes listening to the audio version. I also think I would do better with a good map close at hand as I read. The other challenge was the organization. To make his points, he often circles back to earlier topics and themes. Sometimes that makes it more confusing to follow. This book will be well worth a closer read. It does help inform current and future foreign policy. ( )

This is an excellent book, and I have learned a lot from reading the book.

When I read a book called "1962, the War that Wasn't", I realised the importance of geography in geopolitics. Rather, it brought home the importance of geography. When China annexed Tibet and Sinkiang, and Aksai Chin, they ensured that they had access to water and trade routes. Many of my friends disputed this.

When you read this book - and it may be worthwhile to explore the many authors he cites - you will gain an intimate appreciation of the geographic importance of the location of places and why countries play in seemingly unimportant countries.

The book gives you a broad sweep of geography and geopolitics and spans the globe. It is excellent, and will provide you with a springboard which you can launch for your future explorations. ( )

Eerily prescient. Was afraid of someone with a hammer but turned out to be quite measured and restrained. The analysis is very selective and mostly about places the author visited/cares about. ( )

Interesting, if not magisterial. Is informed by the ghosts of past foreign policy debates in a manner that sometimes seems off-putting — one wants to learn more about geopolitics, not rehash 1990s debates about Balkan intervention. A nice thought-provoker, but one that covers a lot of subjects cursorily. ( )

An interesting analysis of how location, location, location matters for a country also. How the fate of landlocked countries is closely tied to countries that surround it that have access to ports such as the need for Afghanistan to depend on Iran or Pakistan to export it's goods. The evolution or rather the non-evolution of Russia as a true western power due to lack of access to warm water ports. The unique position that the US of A occupies bounded by two major oceans. A very interesting and readable study.

An interesting analysis of how location, location, location matters for a country also. How the fate of landlocked countries is closely tied to countries that surround it that have access to ports such as the need for Afghanistan to depend on Iran or Pakistan to export it's goods. The evolution or rather the non-evolution of Russia as a true western power due to lack of access to warm water ports. The unique position that the US of A occupies bounded by two major oceans. A very interesting and readable study.

This book started out like the kind of book I really dislike: throwing out of lots of names and semi-obscure references with little attempt to engage the reader. I was doubly disappointed because I have read Monsoon by the same author and found it so much better.

It got better in the second part, but I had trouble following Mr. Kaplan's argument. He takes a very broad, rambling approach to his topic.

If you decide to read this book, I recommend you begin with the Afterword: it provides an excellent overview and the clearest explanation of the author's ideas.

p.s. As a Canadian, I was greatly offended by the description of Canada as "the arctic" bordering the U.S. to the north. ( )

This is a very good book about how geography is a big influence on how nations function around the world. He brings in ideas from famous geographers and historians of the past in his effort to explain the situations countries find themselves in. Russia has a vast plain subject to many invasions. Hence, a fortress mentality. Countries which develop sea power function differently than those who have concentratd on land forces. Sometimes, certain locations cause countries to have considerable effect on those near them, such as Iran (Perdia - the pivot) and Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire. Quite a bit was written on China and India, which are fairly close to each other, but vastly different. I enjoyed this book immensely. ( )

Kaplan's main thesis is great food for thought; that is: the more the world is connected, the more strategic geographic locations are important. I know I'm going to be reading world news in a better more informed way. This is a very interesting book that suffers from bad writing and editing. Kaplan is quite good at making what could be a perfectly good sentence into a convoluted one. That said, I know more now that I did before about the interplay of geography, politics and strategy. ( )

Kinda interesting, but not enough to make me want to finish. ( )

Robert Kaplan sets out to describe the effects that physical environments have had on Human affairs for the last four thousand years, with a large number of more modern examples. He quotes from some of my favourite writers on this topic from the past and joins Toynbee, McNeill, and even Freya Starke. The problem of some Americans in dealing with foreign parts of the globe, where their cultural traditions are conditioned by different physical as well as human environments are laid out in clear terms. the prose is literate and the maps quite useful.
There are a few cases of special pleading for current conservative approaches to problems. He has a very limited number of answers to the Mexican/Chicano stresses in the USA, for example, and doesn't spend time on successful challenges to the environment that have increased the chances of world peace and betterment. So the tone is alarmist, from the USA! point of view. But within its ideological strictures, it's a very good survey of 2012 on planet earth. ( )

The discipline of Geopolitics had become tainted after totalitarian regimes in the 20th century had made it the basis of their foreign policies. Kaplan dusts it off, incorporates new viewpoints (Huntington, amongst others) and presents new geopolitical insights for the 21st century.
It is probably inevitable that a book of this scope will contain some regrettable cultural generalisations and lack of nuance. The analysis of China's geopolitics was the most revelatory, whereas the chapters on the other regions had me confused at times: having signed up for the Heartland theory, the author seems undecided where this heartland is. Just as he has convinced the reader that Kazakhstan is the heartland that will define who controls Europe, Africa and Asia, the analysis turns towards India. Or Iran. And then it turns out that Afghanistan - of all places - is the pivot state that will determine the global leader of the 21st century. Some might find the book an ex-post grand apology for American foreign policy decisions in the last two decades; others like myself will remember the unsettling picture of the military face-off between China and the US over the control of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans - which has only just started. ( )

Classic Kaplan. In depth history in relation to current events and what may be happening in the near future. less ideological and more rational and in depth than Fergusson. A book I didn't want to put down or end and gave me another way of looking at the conglomeration of nation states on the planet. A rare 5 star review. ( )

What the map tells us about coming conflicts and the battle against fate